Jessica Exall's Illustrations

About Jessica Exall Hiya, I am an Illustrator/ Puppet maker from the sunny countryside of Kent. My work is about bringing out the beauty and uniqueness in living things, that others may not consider beautiful. I am interested in nature and enjoy finding the bizarre and strange in wildlife and documenting it with inks. Within my work I try to educate the viewer about environmental issues and different vulnerable species through my images. Contact me at: [email protected] Twitter: twitter@ jeexall.com instagram - instagram.com/jeexall

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Screen shots from my stop motion film. I am half way through filming... eeck!!  Can’t wait to start animating my aliens.

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1st try of animating ‘Space Cat’.

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Alien plants for my animation.

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Had a nice day doing a froggy commission. I not very good at doing backgrounds and always worry it’s going to ruin the painting. But think I’ve nailed it today. :)

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I’ve been working all weekend on my spaceship and set. My hands sparkle silver and gold.

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Art Club - Animal Heads

The students like working in 3D so I thought it would be fun to make paper mache monster/animal heads to put up around the School.

Firstly, we started with a ball of newspaper that we wrapped in masking tape and tin foil.

I tried to get the students to think about building up the face with small pieces of tin foil and newspaper balls.

When they were happy with the shape of their monster/animal head they wrapped it in masking tape and started paper macheing their sculpture.

Because paper mache takes so long to dry I think it’s best to use kitchen roll and half PVA glue mixed with water. I choose to use kitchen roll because it hardens better than newspaper and you don’t have to use so many layers.

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Art Club- Totem pole toys

We had an old broom handle which we cut into small chunks and drilled small holes into the top. Next we glued small bits of wood dowling into the holes.

I showed the students work by illustrators who make designer toys, and gave them a small bit of sculpy each to sculpt around the wooden chunks.

Some students made weird faces you could swap, others made animals, aliens and abstract shapes.

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Art Club- Wearable art

At work I run a small art club for the key stage 3 students. It’s been really good getting the boys thinking about art in different ways and getting them to think creatively about the materials they use.  In my work I recycle a lot of materials and will upcycle objects you wouldn’t think about painting on. I wanted to do projects that students could do at home if they wish, with materials they can find at home.

I thought it would be fun to make wearable art, so for a couple of weeks we all collected bottle lids. It’s amazing how much we collected in such a short time.

We got the students to paint on the lids, stuck brooch pins on the back and turned them into badges. It was great fun getting the students to think about working small.

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Animation sets! :)

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My puppet for ‘space cat’ is my favourite so far. She was so much fun to make and the most tricky. Because i wanted her to be able to move freely, i made  several mock ups of her space suit.

Even though i chose to do a sci-fi... i am freaked out by anything to do with space (I feel panicky looking up at the stars). So this was a good project to get over my fear. I went to the ‘Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age’ exhibition and was inspired by the stories of the first beings going into space.

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Postcards look so good!!!!!!

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Todays task, hand out leaflets and postcards about my exhibition. #postcards #exhibition #Fristsoloexhibition #Tunbridgewellsevents #TunbridgeWells #puppets #Tonbridgewellspuppets

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New lapwing puppet... his name is  Bobby Peewit.

# lapwing #peewit #puppet #birdpuppet #lapwingpuppet

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This puppet was Inspired by a history show I watched in the summer (tales from the royal wardrobe) and the tudor exhibition in the London portrait museum. This puppet was so much fun to make..... I wish I had his jazzy trousers.